When I Am Old: The Self-Face Recognition Advantage Disappears for Old Self-Faces

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Social Neuroscience
• Face Perception

Background:

• The self-face recognition typically shows a processing advantage over familiar and stranger faces.
• Previous research established this advantage using current self-face stimuli.
• The impact of an aged self-face on this processing advantage remains unexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether an aged self-face retains the typical processing advantage.
• To examine how the perception of an older self-face differs from a current self-face or an aged familiar face.
• To explore novel methods for studying the future self.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments were conducted comparing the aged self-face with the present self-face and an aged friend-face.
• Experiment 1 employed a standard visual search paradigm.
• Experiment 2 utilized the implicit association test.

Main Results:

• The processing advantage typically associated with the self-face was found to disappear when the self-face was aged.
• Both the visual search and implicit association tasks indicated a loss of self-face advantage for older self-representations.
• The aged self-face was processed similarly to an aged friend-face, losing its unique status.

Conclusions:

• The self-face processing advantage is not constant and diminishes as the self-face ages.
• This finding suggests a shift in self-perception over time, impacting how we process our own aged image.
• The study offers a new paradigm for investigating the psychological concept of the future self.